COMMENTS:Semi-GhostREMAINS:Current residences, many original
buildings.

It could be considered
a bit unusual to name a town using the maiden name of the wife of the president
of the united states. But that is how the town of Folsom came to be named.
Frances Folsom was the maiden name of the wife of Grover Cleveland, president
of the United States at the time. Folsom, however, had a predecesor existence
called Madison. Called Madison after the first settler, Madison Emery, the
town dissapeared so completely there is no physical evidence today it ever
existed except foundations of the old grist mill. It did, but not for long.
The Colorado and Southern Railroad bypassed the town forcing it to seek
a new site closer to the railroad (about 8 miles NNE). The new site was
named Folsom and it grew quickly. By 1895, the town had the largest stockyards
north of Fort Worth. In 1908, a flash flood nearly demolished the town drowning
17 persons. The town is the birth place of the "Folsom Man" a
name given the supposed existence of man in the area dating back to the
Pleistocene or Ice Age some 20,000 years ago. In 1927, archaeologists uncovered
bones belonging to Ice Age animals, most of them slain by man-made weapons
such as spears and lances.The discovery dated the existence of man in North
America to 1000 B.C., much earlier than previously estimated. Submitted
by Henry Chenoweth.